Smart City Asia 2024, an international forum and exhibition on smart urban area development, was held in HCM City recently which gathered 150 businesses.

Vietnamese government officials have repeatedly affirmed that developing smart cities is a trend and is not a new matter in Vietnam. What the country needs to do is deploy the plan effectively long term for sustainable development.

At first, it’s necessary to gather strength on solving big questions such as transport, environment, energy, waste treatment and social security. The smart items need to be defined, calculated and included in urban development planning.

Long urged local authorities to take serious measures to direct the connection and sharing of data so as to store for common use data of different fields and local authorities. The data must be regularly updated. Sharing data will determine the development of smart cities.

The Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) is writing a draft regulation on database for common use, expected to be submitted to the government in May, including national database, data of ministries, branches and localities and the relations among common-use database; and the data sharing among state agencies.

MIC is also joining forces with the Ministry of Construction to issue a set of criteria for smart sustainable cities. The criteria will measure the development of smart cities, and create common awareness of the development of smart city in association with national digital transformation.

HCMC is an economic, financial and trade center of the country. It also acts as a ‘locomotive’ of the southern economic region and make a great contribution to the regional socio-economic development. In 2022, HCM City was among top 200 dynamic ecosystems globally, ranked 111st, or 68 grades higher than 2021.

HCM City has been supporting enterprises’ development through policies, including support to an innovative startup ecosystem.

HCM City has decided that a digital economy would make up 25 percent of the city’s GRDP (gross regional domestic product) by 2025 and 40 percent by 2030.

Anh Phuong